The 90's Arcade Racer - development update

The original plan was for three tracks, three cars, a single Arcade mode and was targeting PC, Mac and Linux only. However, with Nicalis being part of the picture the project grew, both is scope and in quality and the most importantly the game is releasing for Wii U, as we had previously announced.

Having a fixed hardware meant the limitations where set in stone, that was a great thing for development but also had its drawbacks. Getting the original PC code to run on Wii U at 60fps meant some effects had to be replaced or disabled and that we had to do plenty of custom work. However, once we had the game running properly and our targets set, development went smoothly and sped up for PC as well, at least in most areas.

Like we've mentioned in the past the major hurdles we had to overcome had to do with car physics and AI. I would like to get in to a bit more detail on this area.

Originally, the game was using of the shelf components to handle car physics and AI. The game was functioning but it didn't really play like it should, it was closer to a simulation than an arcade racer and could only handle a handful of AI cars.
Once we had a programmer on board it became clear that we would have to redo almost all the existing physics code and then do a lot of custom work to get where we wanted the game to be.